This is a promotional pamphlet that accompanied Coleco video games for the Atari 2600 console. Donkey Kong was decent, but I really liked Venture and the Smurf game, personally. Given how rudimentary Venture graphics were in the Coin-op version, it almost seemed like a flawless port to the 2600. As for Gargamel’s Castle, well, I’ve been an unrepentant Smurf fan since second or third grade.

Zach Whalen brought this over along with a ton of video cartridge manuals and other “paratext” as he described it. This stuff is alike a waterfall of context nostalgia. Between the cartridge art, the player manuals, advertisements like this one, and the actual cartridges and consoles—I really couldn’t be happier. My office has transformed into an early 80s showroom. I’ll be scanning and blogging as much of the cartridge art, manuals, and advertisements as I can as part of the Console Living Room exhibit. And you can be sure I’ll be flooding all the social mediaz with what I discover.
#umwconsole